The Friesland Foods dairy in Nijkerk is the main production plant and distribution centre for Friesland Foods fresh food products in the Netherlands. The plant has been rebuilt (2007/2008) in order to expand the maximum capacity to 350 mill. litres/year of fresh milk and other fresh dairy products. The fully automated plant is operated by 350 employees. The contract to build the new equipment was won by Van Uitert B.V. in Dongen, a specialist in conveying and packaging solutions for the food and beverage industries. They were given just five days to dismantle the old system, install the new system and get everything running. A task almost as difficult as flying an aeroplane while you build it!
The only solution was to build and test the entire system at Van Uiterts production facilities – then take it apart - and move it in smaller modules to the Friesland Foods plant in Nijkerk.
"We had never installed such a complex system in only 5 days", says Johan Geers, manager engineering at Van Uitert. "So, we had to redesign the system to make it fully modular."
Modular design
Van Uitert proposed to Friesland Foods to built the conveyors with VLT® Decentral Drive FCD 300 from Danfoss. The drives would be mounted on the frame of the conveyors near the geared motors and all sensors and actuators on each conveyor module (e.g. proximity sensors and solenoid valves) would be connected to the high speed digital inputs and outputs of the drives. All drives would be connected to the PLC via a Profibus network. So, the necessary wiring on site would be reduced to just connecting the power cables and the Profibus cables. To avoid expensive downtime in case any of the sensors would need to be replaced, they proposed to connect all the input/output devices via IP67 rated M12 connectors on the drives. This would also allow maintenance personnel to read the status of the sensors on the built-in LED indicators on the drives.
Friesland Foods in Nijkerk already had a large installed base of VLT® variable speed drives from Danfoss but they were all installed in electrical cabinets. "We were not used to the idea of installing electrical drives in wash down areas," according to maintenance manager Renger de Vries. "but the installation time was a very critical issue, so we accepted Van Uiterts proposal with FCD Decentral Drives and gave them the green light to go ahead with the project".
Danfoss Bauer gear motors with high break-away torque
To reduce the need for mechanical maintenance and to keep the energy cost to a minimum they decided to use BK10 series bevel geared motors from Danfoss Bauer. These motors offer a very high break-away torque which is needed when the equipment is started after a week-end with no chain lubrication.
The first phase of the Van Uitert project was completed at the beginning of 2007 and Friesland Foods have been very satisfied with the performance. Everything was up and running within the five day time slot! All 200 FCD decentral drives have been running since the system was commissioned.
Van Uitert have now installed the second phase of the project in 2008 using the same type of Danfoss products which were used successfully in the first phase of the project.
